When it comes to wastewater lagoons, there are three main challenges that operators run into. The first, similar to other parts of the nation’s wastewater treatment infrastructure, is age. The second is compliance with new EPA ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorus limits which many lagoon plants weren’t designed to deal with. And the third is expansion as communities grow and need additional capacity.

At the wastewater treatment facility, the biggest energy consumer is almost always the multistage aeration blowers. Replacing these blowers with high speed turbo blowers can save energy but the short-term cost to replace the existing blowers, reroute pipe and set new foundations can make the change a hard sell.

Aerzen supplies blowers for industrial and for wastewater treatment. Tom McCurdy, Regional Sales Manager at Aerzen, told Water Online radio in an interview that his company is unique in that they have the ability to help customers pick the right technology for the application without bias because they have multiple technologies available. They will work with the customer within what they need in terms of maximum and minimum flows, pressure swings, on-off cycles, etc., and will help guide a customer towards the right technology.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to aerating wastewater lagoons. As Randy Chann, President and CEO of Environmental Dynamics International (EDI) explains in this Water Online Radio interview, each lagoon environment needs to be configured to meet both financial and regulatory outcomes.

With infrastructure dollars still tightly constricted, Aeration Industries International is focusing its attention on making wastewater treatment as cost-effective as possible. “Eighty percent of a wastewater treatment plant’s energy consumption takes place at the aeration basin,” Michael Ramirez, Director of Marketing for Aeration Industries points out in this Water Online radio interview. “Infrastructure dollars are low, everybody knows that. So we need to look for ways to really save money for the customer.”